The only A-list film event both in Africa and in the MENA region, the Cairo International Film Festival will take place from 13-22 November and will screen 97 films from 52 countries, 29 of which will be world or international premieres. While the Honorary Golden Pyramids for Lifetime Achievement will be given to Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr and Egyptian actress Lebleba, known for her work in the 1970s (also partly influencing the movies featured in the Cairo Classics retrospective section), and the Faten Hamama Excellence Award will be bestowed upon Egyptian filmmaker Kamla Abu Zekry, the seven-member jury chaired by Japanese helmer Naomi Kawase will have to decide which of the fresh titles and contemporary filmmakers will earn their Golden, Silver and Bronze Pyramids, along with other awards.

This year’s International Competition includes a total of 14 film titles, five of which will be getting their world premieres. The European presence in the main competitive category is strong once again this time around: nine of the competing films are European productions or co-productions, and two of them will world-premiere at Cairo. Those world-premiering European titles are Nicolas Giraud’s The Astronaut [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] (France) and Eleonora Veninova’s Things Unsaid [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Eleonora Veninova
fiche film] (North Macedonia/Serbia), while three more hail from other regions, such as Ahmad Abdalla’s 19B (Egypt), I Don’t Want to Be Dust (Mexico/Argentina) by Iván Löwenberg, and Ridha Behi’s The Island of Forgiveness (Tunisia/Lebanon/USA). Other European majority productions include Damian Kocur’s Bread and Salt [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Damian Kocur
fiche film] (Poland), Maksym Nakonechnyi’s Butterfly Vision [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Maksym Nakonechnyi
fiche film] (Ukraine/Czech Republic/Croatia/Sweden), Pierre Földes’ animated feature Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Pierre Földes
fiche film] (France/Canada/Netherlands/Luxembourg), Ali Cherri’s The Dam [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ali Cherri
fiche film] (France/Lebanon/Sudan/Qatar/Germany/Serbia), Firas Khoury’s Alam [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film] (France/Palestine/Tunisia/Saudi Arabia/Qatar) and Emmanuelle Nicot’s Love According to Dalva [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Emmanuelle Nicot
interview : Emmanuelle Nicot, Julie Es…
fiche film] (Belgium/France). There is also one minority co-production, Something You Said Last Night [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Luis De Filippis
fiche film] (Canada/Switzerland) by Luis De Filippis.

European productions and co-productions will also be represented in two other parallel competition sections. The French-Lebanese co-production Mother Valley [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] will world-premiere in the Horizons of Arab Cinema competition, while Mounia Meddour’s French-Belgian co-pro Houria [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] will have its MENA premiere in the same strand. In the Critics’ Week competition, European-backed titles will dominate the roster. The Oasis of Frozen Waters (Morocco/France) by Mohammed Raouf Sebbahi will celebrate its world premiere, Christian Suhr’s documentary Light upon Light (Egypt/Denmark) will have its international one, while the list of European flicks is rounded off by Valentina Maurel’s Tengo sueños eléctricos [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Valentina Maurel
fiche film], Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s Pamfir [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
interview : Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
fiche film] and Michal Blaško’s Victim [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Michal Blaško
fiche film].

The Main Selection – Out of Competition will also screen some European titles that are well known from the festival circuit, such as Carla Simón’s Alcarràs [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Carla Simón
interview : Carla Simón
interview : Giovanni Pompili
fiche film], Lukas Dhont’s Close [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Eden Dambrine
interview : Lukas Dhont
interview : Lukas Dhont
fiche film], Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Maryna Er Gorbach
fiche film], Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film], Mario Martone’s Nostalgia [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Mario Martone
interview : Pierfrancesco Favino
fiche film], Florian Zeller’s The Son [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] and Cristian Mungiu’s R.M.N. [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Cristian Mungiu
interview : Judith State
fiche film]. The same could also be said for the Special Screenings programme, the non-competitive International Panorama and the genre-orientated Midnight Screenings.

As for the festival’s industry section, the fifth edition of the Cairo Industry Days will take place from 17-22 November, taking in a selection of master classes (given by, among others, Lifetime Achievement Award winner Béla Tarr and jury president Naomi Kawase), workshops (again, Béla Tarr and US cinematographer Irvin Liu, to name just a few), and a number of panels and talks with two other winners of Honorary Awards, Kamla Abu Zekry and Lebleba. On top of this, 15 film projects at various stages, from development to post-production, coming from ten countries in the Middle East-North Africa region will be pitched at the ninth Cairo Film Connection.